NEW YORK (AP) — A federal judge immediately rejected a defense request for a mistrial on Wednesday at the sex trafficking trial of Sean “Diddy” Combs, after his attorneys said prosecutors tried to imply to a jury that the music mogul interfered with the investigation into rapper Kid Cudi’s firebombed Porsche in 2012.
Although such mistrial requests are common during lengthy federal trials involving hundreds of pieces of evidence and dozens of witnesses, this was the first request at Combs’ trial, which is in its third week of testimony in Manhattan. Combs has been active in his defense, regularly writing notes to his lawyers, and they have consulted with him as they questioned witnesses.
Judge Arun Subramanian instructed the jury to disregard testimony about the destruction of fingerprint cards that occurred months after Cudi’s car was set ablaze. Weeks before that firebombing, Combs became enraged when he learned that Cudi was dating Cassie, the singer who had a nearly 11-year relationship with Combs from 2007 to 2018.
The Molotov cocktail used to burn Cudi’s car in his Hollywood Hills driveway was fashioned out of a 40-ounce Old English 800 malt liquor bottle and a designer handkerchief, according to Lance Jimenez, an arson investigator for the Los Angeles Fire Department, and photographs shown in court.
